The Twilight 25 - Round 09
by EffulgentEllie
Summary: Entries based off of word prompts from Round Nine for The Twilight 25. May be a combination of drabbles, flash fictions, and one-shots, but mostly one-shots. Some dark and some fluff. Enjoy!
1. Ancient

**THE TWILIGHT TWENTY-FIVE: **thetwilight25 dot com  
><strong>PROMPT: <strong>#01 Ancient  
><strong>MAIN CHARACTER: <strong>Edward  
><strong>RATING: <strong>M  
><strong>WORD COUNT: <strong>1,304

* * *

><p><strong>DISCLAIMER: <strong>I do not own Twilight or anything associated with the Twilight Universe. I'm just playing around and no copyright infringement is intended. The only things that belong to me are my original characters and the plot.

* * *

><p><strong>EPOV<strong>

The ground beneath my bare feet began to split and liquid fire spewed forth from between the gaps. I easily stepped over the treacherous landscape while my mind wondered elsewhere.

I remembered my life eons ago. Eons may be an exaggeration, or it may be just a fraction of the time, I wasn't sure. The years sort of slipped away from me in blurry images and faces that meant nothing, except for one.

My hand snaked out and I wrapped my cold digits around hers. With a quick tug, she closed the distance between us and formed her petite body to my side. We fit together perfectly, just like we did from the beginning.

I firmly believed that Bella and I were the only ones remaining. As the years passed, my family and I watched as the human race went through plagues and wars and natural disasters that of which one could barely imagine plausible. But, like always, they adapted, they evolved.

Once they realized that their precious earth would not be able to sustain life as they knew it for much longer, they began seeking out other habitats. From what I gathered of their research as they explored, they had found a twin to this planet just two galaxies over. The distance was great, but with thousands of years of advancing technology, they managed to find a way to make the trip last less than half of their short life spans.

Half of their life spent careening through space and the other half of their life pioneering a new world for future generations. The idea sparked adventure and hope for most, but there were a few radical groups who refused to join the mass populace. They stayed behind and watched as the last of the ships departed.

Bella and I were right behind them, watching as our family left with the last shipment, but not joining in the crowd's uproarious spectacle. It wasn't a victorious occasion for us; it was simply a true goodbye.

Convincing our family, our parents and siblings for all intense and purposes, was a rather sordid affair. They tried refusing the move, not wanting to leave without us, but we had refused. Adamantly, in fact.

As the human race grew closer and closer to their adventures through space, my wife and I had discussed in great detail what we would do. At first we were joyous, for many reasons.

Our family was whole, at the time, and much safer than we used to be. A large majority, including the entire Volturi, of the vampire race were destroyed by a rare blood disease years prior. Humans were persevering like always and we, with our parents, siblings, and daughter in tow, were planning on joining them in their journeys.

Plans changed. Quickly. Not long after our enemies were destroyed, Renesmee fell victim to the same disease. Its effects were different due to her hybrid nature. Instead of dying quickly, she grew rabid, destroying towns and slaughtering anyone, regardless of species, who stepped in front of her.

Our once beautiful and kind-hearted girl had turned into what I, myself, always feared becoming.

Watching such a thing happen to your own child was, by far, the worse punishment any god or deity could have bestowed upon me. I would have much rather taken her place and allowed my mate to destroy me out of pity than to make the same decision for my daughter.

We restrained her instead, but no cure could be found, despite how tirelessly I worked alongside my creator, my father, Carlisle. Eventually, though, our efforts proved fruitless, regardless of our long hours. The disease mutated, allowing the normal effects to take over.

Bella and I held our daughter as she sobbed and begged and cried and bled. So much blood.

No matter what we did or what we said, the end result was the same. She died, taken from us far too early for our unnaturally long, possibly eternal, lives.

That was when we decided to stay. We would help the humans who denied possible life pass the stars for as long as they could survive in the ever changing climate and then… then we would join our daughter. We would let this planet swallow us whole.

Weather it was in a fiery explosion or a silent extinction; we would welcome it together with open arms. I glanced over at my wife, my mate, watching as she stepped over another large gash in the surface.

Our once beautiful landscape had fallen prey to the planet's internal misery. Beautiful hues of greens and browns had turned to violent shades of blacks, reds, and oranges. Large cities looked even more deserted with crumbling buildings and backdrops of fiery hills.

The earth was dying, slowly and painfully, and we were just waiting our turn. The thought of Bella no longer being alive, for lack of a better word, made my undead heart clench, but I couldn't fault her on her decision. I made the same one.

Her voice was a beautiful sound I hadn't heard in decades due to the oxygen that no longer surrounded us. Its absences is what caused the remaining survivors to perish. But her tinkling laugh was something I hadn't heard in hundreds of years, since the death of our daughter. Once again, I couldn't fault her.

We spent our days roaming, starving because of the absence of life, but we continued to move. Our clothes were long since shred and anything we found was beyond destroyed, so we decided to forgo the artificial fabrics all together.

We were the damned Adam & Eve. Our tale of creation and birth and love and forever told in reverse.

A low rumble echoed up around us and the surface beneath our bare feet shook with a violence we hadn't felt in years. Bella stopped her trek across the flames and pulled me to her side. With a single look, we understood.

Our time was near, closing in on us in rapid events that started hundreds of thousands of miles away. I didn't pull my eyes from her steady gaze as I lowered my mouth to her, opening to her sweet tasting tongue, despite the dirt that dusted her face and bare body.

She climbed her way up my form, wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck as her fingers dug deliciously through my hair. Her intentions were clear and, with what seemed to be my singular thought when it came to my wife, I couldn't fault her.

It only felt right to be connected to her in every way when our conscious left this world. I rocked my hips, sliding my length between her easily, before pushing inside of her warmth to the hilt. Like always, being connected felt just… right.

We fell to the rumbling ground, battling against it with our rocking motion. My thrusts matched its tempo, but I refused to pull myself too far from her body, not wanting to have an inch of her skin away from my own.

I vaguely recognized the larger gashes forming in the surface or the bubbling lava spewing ever higher from within them. Nor did I care to look up and see the even darker sky, which already seemed fathomless in its depth of stars, or feel the way the entire earth shifted, jerking our pleasure riddled bodies with it.

I was too wrapped up in Bella. My mind constantly on my wife and mate, how my skin still sparked when we touched, how her beautiful moans drowned out the violence in the background, and how her golden eyes refused to look away from my own.

We are ancient. We are eternal. We are cursed. We are vampire.

And now, we are no more.


	2. Animalistic

**THE TWILIGHT TWENTY-FIVE: **thetwilight25 dot com  
><strong>PROMPT: <strong>#02 Animalistic  
><strong>MAIN CHARACTER: <strong>Edward  
><strong>RATING: <strong>M  
><strong>WORD COUNT: <strong>1,448

* * *

><p><strong>DISCLAIMER: <strong>I do not own Twilight or anything associated with the Twilight Universe. I'm just playing around and no copyright infringement is intended. The only things that belong to me are my original characters and the plot.

* * *

><p><strong>EPOV<strong>

I was feeling beyond euphoric.

No other word could summarize the torrent of emotions and feelings that were coursing through my body. Fuck, even euphoric barely grazed the surface.

Sensual. Erotic. Carnal.

I was in a cloudy haze of sharpened senses and I knew, deep within my subconscious, that those two descriptions didn't particularly go hand in hand, but I didn't give a flying fuck. It was a strange sort of mentality. I felt foggy, dream-like, but all of my senses were heightened.

My mind was trying to process the overabundance while my body simply basked in what was currently happening around me. I was definitely on sensory overload.

There was a pitter-pattering noise of droplets hitting the tile floor somewhere in the distant background that was only covered by my heavy breathing and her belly-deep moans.

The room was smothered in the smell of our sex, delicately lined with a tinge of copper, and I could even smell the hint of spearmint from her mouth as we exchanged breaths. Actually, the scents were so over-powering that I could taste them on my tongue and they mixed deliciously with the saltiness of her skin.

My fingers felt the silkiness of thick liquid as I spread it across her flesh, down her inner thighs. It blanketed both of our bodies and caked in our hair, causing her chestnut strands to feel slicker than normal.

And I could see _everything_.

Every flutter of her lashes and bite of her lip as she pulled in another sharp breath. Every furrow of her brow and clench of her jaw as I pushed myself deeper inside, angling just right to hit that magical spot. Every tightened grip and whitened knuckle and bouncing breast and every inch of glistening skin.

Skin that was covered in the thing I loved most in this world, second to only the woman who was writhing beneath me.

Blood.

So much fucking blood.

We were a tangle of limbs on the soaked floor with her on her back, her hair splayed out in a morbid abstract mixture of brown and red, while I pumped myself into her center. Her heat pulled me in, beckoning my very soul with its drastic contrast to the cold tiles that pushed against my knees.

Our lungs burned and skin stung and bones ached; everything hurt and deliciously so.

My back was littered in scratches, both from passion and fear, and I hissed between my teeth as my love added another to her canvas. I took it in stride, both loving and hating the way the pain pulsed straight to my cock.

But she wasn't in control here. She was a remarkable woman; strong and intelligent and beautiful. So fucking beautiful. She may dominate the men in her field, crushing their spirits as she rejected their advances over and over again and bruising their egos as she bested them time and time again in the court of law, just not here.

Here, when we were like this, bound together in carnal bliss and covered in the blood of the innocent and guilty alike, I was in control. I dominated her mind, body, and soul and lay waste to her pathetic attempts at regaining the upper hand.

My fingers snaked their way up her body, marring perfect cream with beautiful crimson as I teased her stomach and the underside of her breast before flicking one nipple roughly. She exhaled a sharp breath and, just as quickly, I wrapped my hand around her throat.

Her eyes widened and she dug her nails deeper into the skin on my shoulder blades, but I wouldn't relent. I knew it and she knew it. Once her body could no longer handle the lack of oxygen, she eventually surrendered. Her nails retracted from my flesh and slid down my spine only to grip my hips firmly.

I slowly unlocked my fingers from around her slender neck, allowing the air to flow more freely down her now burning throat. This was what I loved.

The act of killing, of taking another life long before its destined time, was a high we both craved and a drug we gladly submitted to with each other. But being with her, dominating her while the adrenaline from our prior activities was still pumping through my system and the blood from our victim was still fresh, was a different feeling all together. I felt powerful, supreme.

And I truly fucking craved it.

My thumb rubbed against the mark on her throat that would surely be present the next day, a perfect imprint of my fingers as they dug against her skin, and I smirked down at her. The thought that she would be wearing the evidence of our love making for days to come caused my cock to throb within her.

Her center clenched around me, causing me to hunch over. I blanketed her body with my own and marveled at the feel of her gore covered breasts as they slid against my chest before burying my face in the crook of her neck. With a deep inhale I was accosted with the scent of strawberries and woman and copper and instantly transported back to the act that led to the beautiful scene unfolding before me.

The kill was anything but clean and we preferred it that way. She seduced our victim, a cheating husband, at the local bar in the no-name town we found ourselves in. It took her no time at all to receive an invitation back to his motel room, a dingy hole in the wall, as if she were a common prostitute and I followed along, trailing behind them in the shadows like the monster I knew I was.

We taunted him, allowing the disgusting pig to think he just might possibly escape, before turning the tables against him over and over and over again. He was flailing and panicking and looked to be on the verge of a heart attack, but we couldn't have that.

It was never fun when they died easily.

I shoved into her again, pushing our bodies up as we slid across the blood pooling around the floor from the force of my thrust. She moaned loudly in my ear and I wondered if she was recalling the events as I was, reliving every slice to his flesh and crunch of his bones, as I continued to pound myself into her relentlessly, our wet skin smacking against each other with each hit.

Of course she was.

She was my second half. I lived for her as she lived for me and I loved her so deeply it caused my bones to ache. Sometimes, weather we were giving into our basic desires or playing house with the white picket fence and blue collar jobs, I could swear she was made for me. Drawn and designed from a combination of my dreams and nightmares.

She was my life, my love, my wife and tonight she was mine to possess.

Tomorrow, once the evidence from our play was cleaned and sanitized, we would return home to our boring and small town that was filled with dull and mundane people. We would once again become Mr. and Mrs. Cullen, the sweet, young, married couple who lived in the nice part of town with good jobs and a bright future.

But tonight she was truly mine.

Not our families' or her clients at the firm or the children at the shelter where she volunteered or the ridiculously nosy woman, Mrs. Hudson, who lived down the street from us.

Mine.

Mine to possess and bend and break and fuck. Mine to give into with all of our lustful thoughts and animalistic urges.

I slid my thumb up her jaw and drew it across her lower lip. It pouted out, seemingly on reflex to my touch, and I nipped it gently, groaning at the combined flavors of spearmint and salt and copper. Her body stiffened beneath me before she wrapped my torso in her petite arms, squeezing and clawing as she violently stumbled over the edge of her climax.

My thrusts grew erratic as I chased my release, feeling the coil deep in my abdomen tighten painfully. I slid my arms under her slender form and tangled blood soaked fingers into her mess of brunette hair. My teeth grazed the junction where her neck met her shoulder and I bit down with enough force to break skin as my climax rushed over me.

We rocked together, riding the ebbing waves of our pleasure until I began to harden inside of her once again. Yes, tonight definitely had me feeling beyond euphoric.

Sensual. Erotic. Carnal.

Animalistic.


	3. Banned

**THE TWILIGHT TWENTY-FIVE: **thetwilight25 dot com  
><strong>PROMPT: <strong>#03 Banned  
><strong>MAIN CHARACTER: <strong>Edward  
><strong>RATING: <strong>M  
><strong>WORD COUNT: <strong>1,834

* * *

><p><strong>DISCLAIMER: <strong>I do not own Twilight or anything associated with the Twilight Universe. I'm just playing around and no copyright infringement is intended. The only things that belong to me are my original characters and the plot.

* * *

><p><strong>EPOV<strong>

It was getting ridiculous; rules upon rules, piling on top of each other. If we gave them corporeal form, they would surely fill an endless row of storage lockers

One would think that when the government finally fell we would be free to do as we pleased. Perhaps lawlessness would drown the cities and allow rape, murder, and equally heinous crimes to be acted upon with no worry of punishment. Not even a slap on the wrist or a firm-toned 'don't do that again', but that wasn't the case.

Yes, we, as the people, experienced despair during the first year after the fall. I remember the news cast of the White House being aired live as the monumental building states away burned to ash, all occupants, the President and his family included, dieing with the groaning wood. I remember, not twelve hours later, how the Vice-President's private helicopter met the mid-Atlantic and when the machine was recovered, it was decided that every passenger had drowned when the safety measures failed to deploy. And it continued on like that. One by one the most influential and supposedly powerful people in America were picked off, swatted down like pesky flies.

The worst part was that no one knew who or why. As human beings we have a basic need ingrained in us; to learn and better ourselves, to grow and discover. And we tried. We really did. Our military forces spent hours scouring and searching. No corner of the United States or any other country we gained access to was left unturned, but it was pointless.

The fall, as it was referred to today, nearly five years after the fact, took only a little over three weeks to occur, but the effects were devastating and nearly instant. The people were left with nothing. No guidance or sense of right and wrong.

You would think, as the evolved species, the ones at the top of the food chain, we would have such knowledge ingrained in us, a basic motto of sorts; do unto others as you would have done unto you, but no.

The chaos ensued before the last official had even taken his final breath. We knew it was going to happen. Hell, even he knew it. Why wait for the inevitable? Crime rates rose, the police force powerless to stop the hordes. Everything from petty theft to violent murder was a common occurrence. It became the norm to walk down the street and witness an assault in the making, whether it was a robbery or rape.

Some of us, myself included, tried helping. We really did. We would put ourselves in dangerous situations, stepping between the innocent and the violent, but it was a wasted attempt. There were only two outcomes for a person. Either become a victim or become a monster, a violent person who preyed on the week.

I always wondered which I could succumb to and it didn't take long to find out. Just three months after the fall and I had become more like the monsters I tried to stop than the man I used to be.

A young woman, in her early twenties, was being cornered by a pack of men. She was being handled roughly, shoved between the four of them as they pulled at her clothing and grabbed at her body. I could hear her cries for help two blocks away.

Why she even yelled out, I never asked. Even if someone had heard her, no one really listened. They most likely would have turned the other way, keeping their nose out of trouble, and scurried on home. And who could blame them? I probably should have followed their lead, but would it have mattered? I had felt I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't.

When I approached the group an altercation broke out. A gun, which is now banned if you weren't part of the V-Troops, was brought out during the scuffle and I suddenly found myself no longer just fighting for the woman's honor, for a lack of a better word, but for both of our lives as well.

The gun was thrown from our scuffle and I instantly found myself on my back being beaten bloody. Their kicks to my ribs caused bones to crack and I instinctively shielded my head from the blows, but my cowering didn't last long. A loud noise echoed through the small street and I witnessed as one of my attackers fell to his knees, blood staining his dirty shirt and trickling down from between gritted teeth.

The woman had found the weapon and fired into the crowd of men as they attacked, but once the first bullet rung out, she dropped the heavy metal. I couldn't fault her in that. At least she had bought me enough time to right myself, which is exactly what I did.

As the remaining three assailants turned towards what they perceived as the greater threat, I pulled my aching body from the pavement and quickly found the turning point for us. The metal was warm and felt ridiculously heavier than I remember from my target practice with my father, but it didn't matter. I pulled the gun up and fired off three quick shots, hitting each of my targets in the kill zones I learned at a young age.

Bodies toppled over as blood filled the street around me and the would-be victim. Her deep brown eyes met mine, filled to the brim with a concoction of emotions that I knew all too well; adrenaline, fear, relief, and… excitement.

That was the day I decided enough was enough, the day I realized I truly was no better than those who preyed on the weak and sick. But, like everything else after the fall, it didn't truly matter. The lawlessness and chaos only continued for a few more months.

A new power took over; a single man, wielding influence across the entire country. The masses flocked to him, too stupid to realize his true intent and too naive to think someone from his roots, the good ol' American boy, born and raised, would want to watch his country succumb to the blackness. But he did.

Aro Volturi was a vile man, but one could never argue his intelligence. He was conniving and, as my companion, the woman from the street whose name I learned later on was Bella, had said, sickeningly sweet. He could charm his way through dinners with the elite just as easily as he could tame a mass of commoners in the courtyard.

He pulled the people together, reuniting them with a common goal; revenge. His plan was to search, even if it meant scouring the globe, for the group responsible for our country's state of duress. He promised sweet tasting revenge and compensation to those who enlisted in his cause.

He offered riches, purpose, and immunity from past crimes committed. The pot was sweet and many gathered around for their fair share. They traded their souls to become another body in what was quickly becoming what we now called the V-Troops.

The V-Troops were Aro's personal army, a mass of men and women who seemed to be abnormally violent in nature. They supported the man on the fake throne and did his bidding without question and with no regards to the lives they were destroying by doing so.

Aro saw himself in grayscale while he viewed the world in black and white. What he considered completely wrong for one person was pardoned for himself due to unknown reasons. He would lay claim that what he did was always with the good of our country at the forefront of his mind.

Personally, I saw him in shades of brown because I truly thought he was full of shit. Not a year after his rise to his newly appointed title of King, he began setting rules, or guidelines, as he liked to call them. But guidelines gave room for error where King Aro's rules offered not an inch.

He began by banning firearms. If you weren't a part of his elite forces, then he felt there was no need for you to carry such a weapon. Later, he placed a ban on specific books; the list seemed miles long. Eventually, it felt like a new rule was being made whenever our self-appointed leader felt the need, whether he had an apparent reason or not.

Bars were closed after the people were told it was illegal to drink alcohol that wasn't made in the States. The colorful world we once knew and lived in died when he decided it was distracting and banned every color; a 'dress code' was later enforced, allowing only whites, grays, blacks, and red.

His rules went on and on and, at first, they weren't taken seriously. If someone was caught with a firearm, they used to face one year in a local prison, and if someone were to be caught wearing the color pink it used to mean a hefty fine. But, eventually, Aro grew tired of being undermined by 'his people'. His view of the world grew even more contrasted. There was no longer varying degrees; something was simply right or it was simply wrong and if it _was_ wrong, it was instantly punishable by death.

Needless to say, when the first young child was lined up and gunned down in front of his firing squad, the people were outraged. Riots and even more chaos ensued, this time ten-fold as we banded together for a common cause, a common enemy. But it was too late.

Aro had amassed a large following, his V-Troops alone outnumbered the commoners and we were swatted down, put in our place like the dogs they saw us as. We were a huddled mass at our Master's feet and even though we growled and nipped, it was no use because once you begin to bite the hand that feeds you, eventually the food quits flowing quite as freely.

He starved his people, putting bans on gas, food, and transportation. The use of substance was an excellent motivator on his part and the people eventually bent to his will. They conformed, turning blind eyes to the murder of a man for reading a specific book or the starving family who were found scavenging for scraps in an elitist's dumpster.

But not all of us broke. Some of us, very few in numbers, stood against the torrent of his reign. We fight against his troops and stand up for the weak. Just like his empty promise of revenge, we were bound together by a common goal, a brighter future. Because one day we would make our leader, our King, eat his own words. He will melt from his grayscale pedestal and conform to his own black and white standards. He will be banished from this soil, from this life. He will meet _our_ firing squad and he, himself, will be banned.


	4. Complications

**THE TWILIGHT TWENTY-FIVE: **thetwilight25 dot com  
><strong>PROMPT: <strong>#04Complications  
><strong>MAIN CHARACTER: <strong>Edward  
><strong>RATING: <strong>M  
><strong>WORD COUNT: <strong>1,827

* * *

><p><strong>DISCLAIMER: <strong>I do not own Twilight or anything associated with the Twilight Universe. I'm just playing around and no copyright infringement is intended. The only things that belong to me are my original characters and the plot.

* * *

><p><strong>EPOV<strong>

I was pacing… again. I had been escorted from Bella's room over nine hours ago and I was now on a first name basis with the not so pleasant nurse who sat at the front desk.

She was a fucking bitch.

My eyes snapped up from the bleached white tile when I heard an aggravated huff accompanied by the squeak of off-brand Crocs. Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear. Bitchy McGee stood before me, arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping annoyingly with one brow raised.

Now was not the time for her to start her shit, so I matched her brow and threw in an icy glare.

"Mr. Cullen, I'm going to have to ask you, once again, to _kindly_ keep to the waiting area." She sounded exasperated as her eyes darted in the direction of the room she spoke of.

Fuck her.

And fuck that waiting room, too.

The room was a dingy hole in the wall that reminded me of a mix between a funeral home and the local bar. It smelled of sweat and desperation and sorrow and I knew, for a fact, if I stepped foot back into that room I would most definitely go postal on this entire hospital.

She apparently knew it, too, because she sighed, albeit angrily, and gestured down the corridor with her hand. "Perhaps a cup of coffee would help?"

Yes, because that's exactly what I needed; a cheap cup of sludge to add to my nerves. But I knew she was just trying to get me away from the other families and the fools in the waiting room from hell surely didn't deserve my ire. I nodded, reluctantly, and turned to head in the direction of the coffee machine.

Just as I was turning, the double doors behind the nurse's station opened and a man I vaguely recognized walked out. His smile was hidden behind the surgeon's mask, but you could tell it was there by the way the apples of his cheeks pushed up and crinkled his eyes.

"It's a girl!" That was when I noticed the tiny bundle of pink in his giant hands. People, who I assumed were his family and friends, rushed from the room and surrounded him as he and his newborn basked in praises and congratulations.

And then the pain in my chest returned.

It was a heart-clenching, crippling pain that threatened to bring me to my knees.

That should be me, carrying a bundle of pink or blue and announcing to the world, anyone who would listen, that I was a proud new daddy. But life isn't fair and fate is a completely fucked up bitch.

I may have been wearing the same get-up as the other man, both of us dressed in surgeon's garb after being prepped for the birth of our child, but there was one glaringly obvious difference. I was covered in blood.

My wife's blood, to be more exact.

Bella's labor began normal enough. She woke me a little after two in the morning with her huffing and puffing and breathing exercises. I crawled out of bed, collected her overnight bag, packed the car, and escorted her out. Then I took a moment to give myself a mental pat on the back for staying so fucking calm; especially because I felt like hyperventilating inside.

We we're having a fucking baby!

But, as soon as we arrived, the complications began.

At first, she wasn't dilating. We had been at the hospital for just over twelve hours and she was only four centimeters, but her contractions were frequent and hard. Her doctor, a petite brunette who insisted we called her Alice instead of Dr. Whitlock, was far from pleased with her progress.

That was the first time I heard that god-forsaken word.

"It seems like she's having some complications with dilating naturally. The baby has already dropped and is in position. I think our best bet is to induce labor." Alice had said. All I could do was nod and listen to the next step. We had discussed drugs that would help induce labor, but with Bella being my Bella, she insisted the risks to the baby were too great.

In the end, we decided to try out a mechanical dilator. Personally, I wasn't too pleased with the thought of Alice shoving a balloon in my wife, which she would then inflate, but Bella and Alice assured me all would be well.

It wasn't.

As the balloon was inflating, Bella doubled over in pain.

Keep in mind that I had watched my wife slip on a sheet of ice, fall, and witnessed the shocking scene of how the bone in her leg jutted through her shin at an unnatural angle. Yes, her eyes pricked with tears, but she simply bit down on her lip, hard, and gripped the thighs of her jeans until she was white-knuckled. The only thing she muttered was a simple request to take her to the hospital, which I did… very quickly.

Needless to say, my wife could handle her fair share of pain, so watching her cry out like a banshee in sheer agony caused my blood to boil. I immediately made Alice stop and she agreed that inducing labor would not be in the best interest of the mother.

No fucking shit!

Again with the complications.

It had been twenty-two hours and she was only at six centimeters. Alice had entered the room with an expression that sat somewhere between confidence and I-don't-know-what-else-to-do. "Edward, Bella, I know you wanted to have a natural birth, but we seem to have little to no option anymore. The baby's heart rate is beginning to decrease, so I'd like to prep you for a cesarean section."

The news was like a blow to the gut. She was right; we were definitively hoping to have a natural birth. It was Bella's wish and I planned to support her fully, but, once again, fate took it out of our hands. We reluctantly agreed and I was ushered off to "scrub in", as Alice had called it.

We were wheeled into an operating room and it felt like they had my wife cut open within seconds. I stood by her side, brushing my thumb over her knuckles and tucking stray and sweaty strands of hair out of her eyes as Alice dug inside of her abdomen.

The thought made me fucking sick.

But I stayed strong because not only did I have Bella's big, doe eyes glued to mine, I had a baby on the way; a little human who would look at me for guidance and example. Her tears were silent while I whispered sweet encouragement into her ear, but she interrupted me.

"He's not even here yet and I'm already failing as a mother." Her comment froze my heart and boiled my blood at the same time. I was quick to reassure her, reminding her that Cullens were stubborn bastards and I was sure our baby was as well, right from the start.

Then I went on to remind her that we were definitely having a girl, a little Bella. It was our running feud because we opted out of learning the sex. She swore we were having a boy and I was adamant that she was carrying around a miniature version of herself.

She had just graced me with the sweetest smile when the room erupted in a cacophony of noises. My head pounded as I listened to machines beep erratically, the nurses shouting orders above each other, Alice shouting above them, and then I heard the most beautiful noise of all; a loud and ear splitting cry.

Before I was able to catch sight of our child, I was roughly shoved out of the room as per Alice's heated instructions of, "Get him out of here! Now!"

I protested and fought against the male nurse, but was quickly subdued by sheer size. His bloody hands and chest constricted around me as he pulled me from the operating room while my eyes never left my Bella.

I later learned, from the same man who physically removed me that Bella suffered from a uterine rupture. Apparently it explained the baby's low heart rate and prior issues, but all I heard was that it was another complication; one that could take my love's life from me.

Then I was left to play the waiting game.

Waiting for news about the baby who, as of the last update, was fighting strong and would be coming out of the incubator soon.

Waiting for news about my wife who was struggling with massive blood loss as Alice tried to get the bleeding under control and her uterus repaired.

So much fucking waiting.

My eyes glanced down to the thick liquid that the hospital tried passing for coffee. It was disgusting and tasteless, but it burned and that pain was exponentially better than the turmoil inside of me. My mind kept playing in circles of how I entered this dreadful hospital as a hopeful father-to-be and how I may leave it as a widowed parent. Surely fate wouldn't be such a fickle bitch.

There was a noise behind me. I listened as light footsteps echoed through the vacant hallway, stopping just behind me. Alice cleared her throat. "Edward. I need you to listen to me."

I turned carefully, regarding her with distant eyes. She was still covered in blood, much like I was from my scuffle with the male nurse, but she had pulled her mask down under her chin. "There were complications, as you were made aware. Bella has suffered from a uterine rupture. We were unable to stop the bleeding and repair the uterus."

My mind instantly began to spiral out of control as I repeated key words over and over again. Complications and suffered and rupture and bleeding. Just as I was on the verge of a full scale panic attack, Alice griped my forearms tightly. She shook me once then forced eye contact.

"Damn-it, Edward, listen to me! She'll be okay. We had to perform a hysterectomy and a blood transfusion, but we've managed to get everything under control. She'll be tired and weak for a while, but she'll recover. She and the baby are fine."

"She and the baby are fine." I repeated her words and loved the way they felt rolling off of my tongue, so I said them again, this time a bit louder. "She and the baby are fine!" Okay, probably louder than necessary. The people from the waiting room of hell turned with odd looks.

But I didn't care. I didn't give a flying fuck as I grinned ear to ear and swept the petite doctor up in a bone crushing hug.

I was leaving this hospital as a husband and a father, as a whole man.

Because she and the baby were fine.

Fuck you, complications!


End file.
